It was just noon when the air conditioner went on the fritz. Inside the car we were engulfed in heat – sizzling heat. Nagoyan got out and opened the hood; he stood there with his arms folded, a puzzled expression on his face, then closed it again.
“The long and short of it,” he said, announcing the self-evident, “is that the air conditioner has broken down.”
“Why of aw times does it break down now? This wreck of a car!”
“Don’t belittle my automobile!”
“Aw I meant to say was whit it is!”
“Look. It’s hot enough without your getting angry.”
“But the reason I’m boilin’ over is ’cause it’s so bloody hot!”
“All right. Then simmer quietly, because you know you mustn’t get yourself really worked up.”
“I don’ like it…”
We pulled into a service station. When we asked the attendant about the cooler, he pleaded ignorance on behalf of both himself and his colleagues but added, “If ye’re members of the Japan Automobile Federation, ye can call…”
Doing that would have betrayed our position. We had the tank filled and then took off.
“As long as it’s not a problem with the compressor…”
“Whit’s a compressor?”
“It’s an automobile part,” Nagoyan replied, as though taking me for a fool.
“So we’re to go on makin’ our escape in the heat?”
“Can’t be helped. Let’s take the expressway. It should be all right now. We won’t be caught.”
Nagoyan appeared to be bored with the monotony of the road we were now driving.
“The expressway’s on t’other side o’ the mountains.”
Nagoyan sighed, a look of weary disgust on his face.
“Do you suppose there’s a Mazda dealer?”
“D’ye think we’ll find one in a place like this?”
“No, I suppose not.”
Route 265 steadily narrowed, and then the centerline disappeared. When a car came from the opposite direction, Nagoyan would skillfully back up to a wider area of the road and then move forward again to let ongoing cars squeeze past. He explained that it was a technique known as “coupling and parting.”
It was evening when we pulled into Shiiba. A small village, it had a liquor shop but no convenience store, and though it also had a set-menu restaurant, we couldn’t very well expect to find a Mazda dealer there. I told Nagoyan that I was sick of sleeping in the car. He agreed, and so we wound up as walk-in guests at a local inn. Again we registered under fake names, this time as Kazuo and Michiko Sato. They had a distinctly unsophisticated sound to them, as if we were already oldsters. Nagoyan had a tin ear.
I felt the accumulated fatigue, my body aching from having been cooped up in the car for so long. Not being in the mood to do anything, we sprawled out in a stupor on the floor of the Japanese-style room until the proprietress came in with our dinner.
“If ye should be needin’ more rice, ma’am, just call.”
I’d never been spoken to as though I were a married woman before. The beer went straight to my head. I didn’t think I had much of an appetite, but as I started to eat the broiled trout and the gourd stew, I relished it all. Nagoyan steadily drank his beer, nibbling on his food. Once he reached out for the television remote control, but then gave up on the idea. There was a small bath attached to the room, but I went instead to the inn’s main shared bath facility. Sitting in the hip tub of the tiled bathing room were two shriveled grandmothers with sagging breasts, talking in Miyazaki dialect about love in old age. I kept to myself, concentrating on a thorough scrubbing. Returning to the room, I found the futon already laid out and Nagoyan taking his sleeping medicine. I took mine as well, and then Nagoyan silently turned off all but a small light, as we each, from opposite sides, crawled into our summer bedding. I was heartily sick of pitch-black nights. I could distinctly make out the four corners of the ceiling in the weak yellow light of the electric bulb. Oh, I thought, rooms are nice! Futons are nice. I’d had it with sleeping in the car. I knew what I needed: freedom, a futon, and a little money.
From outside came the clear sound of the insects chirring.
“We’re like brother an’ sister.”
“Brother and sister speaking different languages.”
“But we can still do it.”
“Nah, thot’d be wrong!”
“Why?”
“If we’re not lovers, it’s wrong. And it’s not just with me you shouldn’t be doing it.”
“Uh-huh.”
I had merely felt sorry for him, thinking that as we had already been together so many nights, I could at least do it for him once. But Nagoyan, like a genuine elder brother, gently said “good night.”
I pulled the covers up over my nose to enjoy their well-starched feel. For a moment I suppressed a laugh but then decided that as I’d already downed the pills, I had to say what was on my mind or lose it forever. I pulled back the covers.
“Say…”
“What’s the matter? Isn’t the medicine working?”
In the semi-darkness, he sounded sleepy.
“Nagoyan, a minute ago you talked different.”
Nagoyan yelped and bolted upright. I guffawed, almost losing whatever sleepiness I had gained from the medicine.
“What? No way!”
“But you did.” I imitated him.
“Oh, bother!”
I greatly regretted that in the dim light I could not clearly make out Nagoyan’s agonized face. Again I suppressed a giggle and then laughed anyway, the cycle repeating itself until at last I fell asleep.
It was a deep sleep with no early morning awakening.
“Aaaah!”
I woke up to Nagoyan calling out. It was already light.
“Aah, aah,” he groaned. I glanced over and saw him gingerly raising up his bottom from the futon. When our eyes met, he said, “It’s all right. Go back to sleep.”
I had a fairly clear idea of what had happened, so I did as I was told, turning my back to him. Nagoyan hastily lifted the futon. I could hear him pushing it into the closet, then pattering off to the bath, and closing the door behind him. As the sound of the water in the shower continued, I speedily changed.
Nagoyan emerged, dressed in his usual change of clothes, a look of nonchalance on his face. He stood by the window and leisurely shaved.
“Did ye pish then?”
“What are you talking about?”
“Ye wet yer bed.”
I saw him blush to his ears.
“Now don’t get yerself so upset. It’s jus’ that yer medicine worked too well.”
“Well, lass, do ye ever pish yerself?”
He spoke in a low voice, trying unsuccessfully to imitate me. “Lass,” he called me, apparently thinking that as he had wet his bed in my presence, it would pretentious to speak more formally.
“Twice or thrice.”
“I can’t bear it – a grown man like me doing… It’s never happened before.”
“Shows ye’re getting better. Any normal person would be sure to experience the same.”
I gave bed-wetter Nagoyan a sidelong glance as I put toothpaste to toothbrush.
“Good thing ye didn’t skyte.”
“What’s that?”
“It’s whit ye do when ye’re not pishin’.”
“Amazing! That one’s even better than whatever it is you say for ‘goodbye’.”
The two words seemed quite unrelated, but it was too much trouble to explain. I returned to the bathroom and briskly brushed my teeth.